Self-Service Business Intelligence: Towards a CSF Model for SSBI Success

Abstract: Utilizing Business Intelligence (BI) technologies is becoming increasingly important in order to make data-driven decisions enabling organizations to stay competitive. However, with long lead times, organizations are not able to take those time-critical data-driven decisions in order to stay ahead. With the introduction of Self-Service Business Intelligence (SSBI) systems, more and more organizations are considering deploying SSBI. Those organizations who have adopted SSBI reports low success rates, however. There is an increasing need for guiding organizations towards succeeding with their SSBI initiatives. In order to guide organizations towards SSBI success, this study has conducted seven interviews with BI experts regarding those critical success factors (CSFs) contributing to SSBI success. The result is a conceptual model displaying two contexts – the organizational context and the technological context – containing CSFs that plays a critical role in achieving SSBI success. Those CSFs are user management, collaboration between business and IT, data quality, data governance in relation to maturity and semantic layer strategy.